May I scan the bar code in your arm?

Barcode Implants

By HELEN BRANSWELL
October 14, 2004

Click for music in new window

 VeriChip for Medical Applications in US The Cashless Society Control Grid

       Forget about temperature-taking and blood-pressure checking. In the bright, near future, the first step for people seeking medical care may be to have their bicep read by an electronic scanner seeking data stored on an implanted chip.

A Florida company, Applied Digital Solutions, announced yesterday it had received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market in that country an implantable device known as a VeriChip.

The grain-of-rice-sized chip contains a unique numeric identifier that hospitals and doctors offices could scan to gain Internet access to an individual's medical records. In the initial rollout, the company will target people with chronic health problems -- and complicated medical records and needs -- as well as patients with cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.

The technology has already gained acceptance in Canada and the United States among pet owners and livestock producers who use it to trace animals. But are people really ready to have bar codes implanted under their skin?

Applied Digital's chairman Scott Silverman thinks so. The company has not yet applied for permission to market the product for people in Canada, but Mr. Silverman sees global potential.

"Obviously, this is an application and a product that we intend to market worldwide," he said during a conference call when asked if his company will try to crack the Canadian market.

The beauty of the chip, Mr. Silverman told journalists and investment analysts, is that it has multiple applications.

Some people use it to link their bodies to their medical records. Some organizations, including the office of Mexico's attorney-general, use it as an implanted smart card that gains workers access to high-security facilities. Some people use it to keep track of cows.

But cows don't have privacy concerns. And people who worry about human privacy issues say that while the concept has merit, the device's use would need to be carefully regulated.

Medical ethicist Margaret Somerville said she doesn't object to the devices on principle, but could see how they could be abused.

If anyone could get their hands on one of the company's scanners, security would be easily breached, said Ms. Somerville, founding director of McGill University's Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law.

"Let's assume your [spouse] wants to know if you've been having sex with somebody" and have picked up a sexually transmitted disease, she said. "Could you have a private investigator scan the person without them knowing it and send that off and find out? They're going to have to have safeguards to prevent things like that."

Likewise, the use of the Internet to access medical data could open the door to problems, said Dr. Jeff Blackmer, director of ethics for the Canadian Medical Association. "Kids on the Internet are constantly hacking into sites," he pointed out. Still, it's not hard to see the appeal of a tiny device -- implanted during an outpatient visit using a syringe -- that could allow doctors to determine the name, contact information, drug allergies or special medical needs of an unconscious patient.

"You can think of good things," Ms. Somerville agreed. "But you'd have to make sure that it wasn't abused. And you'd have to make sure it was under the control of the person."


LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER...
People-tracking closer to reality

Deal forged to equip VeriChip with global positioning satellite

December 23, 2004
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

       Setting the stage for controversial tracking technology, the satellite telecommunications company ORBCOMM has signed an agreement with VeriChip Corp., maker of the world's first implantable radio frequency identification microchip.

VeriChip, a subsidiary of Applied Digital, will work with ORBCOMM to develop and market new military, security and healthcare applications in the U.S. and around the world, the company said.

As WorldNetDaily reported, Applied Digital has created and successfully field-tested a prototype of an implant for humans with GPS, or global positioning satellite, technology.


Satellites monitored 24 hours a day from ORBCOMM's Network Control Center in Dulles, Va. (photo courtesy: ORBCOMM)

Once inserted into a human, it can be tracked by GPS technology and the information relayed wirelessly to the Internet, where an individual's location, movements and vital signs can be stored in a database for future reference.

"ORBCOMM's relationship with VeriChip provides yet another new and important industry that will use the ORBCOMM satellite system and its ground infrastructure network to transmit messages globally," ORBCOMM CEO Jerry Eisenberg said.

Initially, after privacy concerns and verbal protests over marketing the technology for government use, Applied backed away from public discussion about such implants and the possibility of using them to usher in a "cashless society."

In addition, to quell privacy concerns, the company issued numerous denials, stating it had no plans for implants.

When WND reported in April 2002 that the company planned such implant technology, Applied Digital spokesman Matthew Cossolotto accused WND of intentionally printing falsehoods.

Less than three weeks later, however, the company issued a press release announcing that it was accelerating development on a GPS implant.


Related stories:


"If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." -1st Corinthians 3:17

"And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:" ~Revelation 14:9-10


The Baptist Top 1000    

The Fundamental Top 500